We are prepared to begin the nineteenth meeting for this session of the Standing Committee on International Trade.
We are going to open our discussion today with the free trade agreement between Canada and the states of the European Free Trade Association--that's Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. We have basic parameters for that discussion, and to begin that investigation, we're asking the department to provide some background today on that agreement.
Let me say we're going to reserve some time at the end of the meeting for committee business, so I'd like to wrap this up no later than 5:15, if it goes that long.
We'll begin, and first of all I'm going to introduce our witnesses today. We have the director general of bilateral and regional trade policy, David Plunkett. David will be opening with his comments in just a moment. We have Aaron Fowler, who is the deputy director of bilateral market access; and Ton Zuijdwijk, general counsel, trade law bureau. Also, we have Frédéric Seppey from the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food. He is the executive director, strategic trade policy.
The process I think we've agreed on is that Mr. Plunkett will begin with an opening statement and then we'll open it to questions by the members of the committee. The questions could be addressed to any of our witnesses, or Mr. Plunkett, you might direct traffic there by passing them on, if you care to do that.
I'll let you begin, Mr. Plunkett.